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Gary Kurtz

"The Dark Crystal" is set in a separate universe, a world beneath three glowing suns in which fantasy creatures, spectral landscapes, and the awesome power of a shimmering, shattered crystal seem strangely natural.

Equally natural is finding Gary Kurtz there.

As producer of "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back," (winner of two Academy Awards) he joined writer/director George Lucas in expanding the horizons of film fantasy, breaking all existent box office records in the process.

Now, as co-producer with Jim Henson of "The Dark Crystal," he has contributed to creating not only a mythical realm but to a bold new technology required to realize it.

While Kurtz's hold on the surreal is proven at this point, his grasp of his craft is equally acknowledged. It was forged at the University of Southern California's famed and fertile school of cinema.

A Los Angeles native, Kurtz was encouraged early by his painter-sculptor mother and photographer father to try the arts. Turning to filmmaking as a hobby, he shot and edited his own 8mm movies; and for his senior term paper in high school, he visited Hollywood studios for interviews and observations.

During his years at USC, Kurtz ran the university's motion picture laboratory; photographed, directed, and edited industrial and educational films; and worked in technical crafts on low budget feature films. Among the most interesting were those of Roger Corman -- "Dementia 13,""Planet Of Blood," "The Terror," "Beach Ball," and "Blood Bath." (Corman was one of the few filmmakers to hire young film students.)

After serving as assistant director to Monte Hellman on two unusual westerns -- "The Shooting" and "Ride In The Whirlwind," each starring Jack Nicholson and each made in six weeks for under $100,000 a piece -- Kurtz was drafted into the armed forces.

Choosing the Marines, he spent two and a half years as a cameraman and still photographer, then returned to civilian life and more low budget films, this time as associate producer. Among the most memorable were "Two Lane Blacktop," a classic existential road picture starring Warren Oates and singer James Taylor; and "Chandler," an experimental film, again starring Oates with Leslie Caron.

It was while visiting friend and former Corman solleague Francis Coppola at his San Francisco studio that Kurtz met fellow USC alumnus George Lucas. Then busy filming "THX-1138," Lucas later came to Kurtz with his idea for "American Graffiti."

With Coppola and Kurtz co-producing and Lucas directing, this insightful, often hilarious film about young Americans coming of age after high school graduation in the sixties was a surprising and unqualified hit of 1973. Nominated for five Academy Awards, it won the Golden Globe Award for best comedy and the New York Film Critics' and National Society of Film Critics' awards for best screenplay. It also launched the careers of such future stars as Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Suzanne Sommers, Bo Hopkins, and MacKenzie Phillips . . . along with Kurtz's own.

Kurtz went on to spend the next four years with Lucas, in the preparation of "Star Wars," followed by the second adventure in the "Star Wars" saga, "The Empire Strikes Back.

While the "Star Wars" saga is situated in a "galaxy far, far away," the realm of "The Dark Crystal" crosses still another dimension: It bears no relationship to our solar system -- or even our universe -- either in it spectral landscapes or bizarre inhabitants.

The one link between the two films is a wizened wizard called Yoda, who first appeared on a tree stump in space in "The Empire Strikes Back." Fully aware that the quixotic Jedi would be a complex creation at best, Kurtz went to master puppeteer Jim Henson for help. Accepting the challenge, Henson recommended long-time associate (and "Dark Crystal" co-director) Frank Oz (creator of Miss Piggy, among others) to play the role, then assigned key members of his staff to the project, contributing to the character's technical design and employing new inventions under development for "The Dark Crystal."

The result? Yoda became a living model for Henson's "Dark Crystal" technology. Out of that successful project grew a close working relationship -- and the decision that Kurtz and Henson would co-produce "The Dark Crystal" together.

Kurtz affinity for such flights of fancy is a lifelong one, surfacing long before he became a student filmmaker at USC. In fact, he realized a childhood dream when he became an owner of a San Francisco publishing house whose catalog is crammed with children's books and fairy tales.

"I love fairy tales," he admits, "because they are so metaphorical. On a different, more ethereal level, they tell us things about ourselves that realistic drama can't quite encompass."

But Kurtz maintains that "a lot of what we think of as 'realistic movies' are modern legends, every bit as mythological as the ancient tales of King Arthur, Hercules, and the Norse gods."

He goes on to cite as examples Humprey Bogart in "Casablanca" and John Wayne in almost anything.

"Even the simplest Wayne Westerns or Bogart action pictures have interior messages in the motivations and beliefs of the characters," says Kurtz. "I think those are the ideas that always remain with you."

It has to do, he feels, with "the tremendous need for heroes in a world in which most of us tend to think more in terms of protecting our own little sphere."

And heroes -- those stalwarts who rise above self-interest to champion a cause, or set off on improbable quests, or even lay down their own lives to save others for the greater good -- are, according to Kurtz, "the real stuff of myths. They're the shining examples we have held up to our young, and clung to ourselves in private moments of self-doubt.

"Heroes can be light-hearted or dramatic, rich or poor, handsome or rough-hewn. But they will always have a certain unmistakable aura about them . . . an air of living outside the ordinary."

To illustrate, Kurtz points to two characters in "Star Wars." While both risk their lives for matters of principle, "Luke Skywalker does it with dedication," says Kurtz, "and Hans Solo handles it with cynicism. Nevertheless," he adds, "they both fit the mold. And they are, of course, relentlessly mythological."

Furthermore, Kurtz contends, "Fantasy tends to be dismissed as light entertainment, but I don't agree with critics who feel that total reality is all that matters in judging the worth of a film.

"There's a lot of negativity in realism," he concludes, "and a lot of valor in fantasy."

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